I'd like to understand perception a bit more...

[Brandotonic]

I am reaching out to our community for some guidance on a few factors.
1. Can I "manually search a room or area with my perception skill? If so, how?

2. Does having darkvision in a less than normally lit area help my perception
Further, If i have darkvision and a torch equipped does that add too or hinder my perception rolls?

3. Is it my DEX that allows me to attack an enemy from the shadows with a bright spell, then immediately go back into stealth?

Thank you to whoever takes the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate your input!

[Brimcon]

1. In this game perception is automatic, so no.
2. It prevents disadvantage overall in darkness but beyond that? No. It does not hinder perception.
3. What class is casting the spell? What spell is it?

[Cyroy]

1. No, but there are mods that change that. Any searching is done automatically by your "passive perception"
2. Not sure how BG3 rules it, but under 5e rules perception checks in the dark without dark vision fail automatically while checks in dim light are made with disadvantage. But from my experience they seem to rule natural darkness the same way as dim light. So yes, darkvision helps and no torches don't hinder it.
3. Dex determines stealth and perception, so yes.

[Jack Hawklight]

As a bonus tip... if everyone in your party fails a perception check, pull out a familiar with high perception (like the raven) gives you another chance to pass it.

[dolby]

2. perception checks for traps, switche,s hiden loot do not care about darkness well at least there was no way to test it cos there was no detailed brake down of checks in log.

THe amount of darkness does effect hide checks though. I tryed to find out if enimies had harder time detecting you with hex spell on... but it looked like it didn't do anything and i tryed lots of rolls...:)

3. This question is abit weird. But yes dex does effect hide cos it effects Stealth skill.
but best thing is to brake line of sight anyway. You have other stuff that gives you advantage on stealth.
For some reason you can use hide in bright sunligh in BG 3 hopefully they fix that, steath is still abit wonky in bg 3.. lots of explots with it.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

1 - currently no, but there is a push from some people to have this changed so that passive perception checks are hidden and an active search action added.

2 - I'm not sure how darkvision affects the game mechanics, as far as I can tell all it does is change how you, as a player, actually see's the game. It's like having dim light up to the range of your darkvision, even without a light source that casts dim light. Torches will make the area around you brighter but your darkvision should still work up to it's range.

3 - Not sure what you mean by "bright spell". Dex is the ability used for stealth checks, but when you attack someone the attack roll depends on what kind of weapon it is. If it's a finesse weapon you will use your Dex or Str modifier, whichever is higher, and if it's a bow you'll use your Dex modifier. Everything else uses Str.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

1 - currently no, but there is a push from some people to have this changed so that passive perception checks are hidden and an active search action added.

NO please NO, Solasta just increased the list proving active search is a total pointless boredom. And that only way to manage it was totally ridiculous, PoE1 with time speed increase x4, facepalm.

For not showing the dices it means a huge work on hints that is very hard to design and implement properly, hint traps, hint secrets, hint anything find by search. When the current system is brilliant for a simple but effective and low cost solution.

[Mosey]

Originally posted by dolby:

For some reason you can use hide in bright sunligh in BG 3 hopefully they fix that, steath is still abit wonky in bg 3.. lots of explots with it.

This is technically accurate, but not really true. While you can 'hide' in an empty field with bright sun if you are outside their vision cone you will automatically fail your hide roll if their vision cone hits you.

There is an icon that pops up that shows how good the 'cover' is in an area, be it darkness or high grass. The more cover there is, the better the odd's that you remain hidden even if their vision cone hits you.

It is a bit wonky though, since as long as you're nowhere near their vision cone you can still 'hide' with no cover. The AI will try to find you most times, but the AI also isn't very good on the current build and breaking ladders or making the path to get to you exceptionally long will frequently break the AI.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Mosey:

The AI will try to find you most times, but the AI also isn't very good on the current build and breaking ladders or making the path to get to you exceptionally long will frequently break the AI.

That's no way my experience of BG3. I don't remind cases where I used stealth+shoot, and even shoot and stealth and had enemies come. But let be clear if shoot and hide needs be targeted, stealth shoot also need be targeted.

Or there's some non stealth character close making enemies come close enough up to break stealth of other characters.

Perhaps the game has some rules for that but the minimum is it's not always working.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Mosey:

Originally posted by dolby:

For some reason you can use hide in bright sunligh in BG 3 hopefully they fix that, steath is still abit wonky in bg 3.. lots of explots with it.

This is technically accurate, but not really true. While you can 'hide' in an empty field with bright sun if you are outside their vision cone you will automatically fail your hide roll if their vision cone hits you.

There is an icon that pops up that shows how good the 'cover' is in an area, be it darkness or high grass. The more cover there is, the better the odd's that you remain hidden even if their vision cone hits you.

It is a bit wonky though, since as long as you're nowhere near their vision cone you can still 'hide' with no cover. The AI will try to find you most times, but the AI also isn't very good on the current build and breaking ladders or making the path to get to you exceptionally long will frequently break the AI.

yep... anyway it's too easy to hide in the middle of the day that's all i was trying to say, due to multiple reasons i agree... i'm not trying to argue in Bad faith or something. in my opinion it should just be harder to hide. To bad about day and night opportunity there but i geuss we can't have everything..

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Brimcon:

1. In this game perception is automatic, so no.
2. It prevents disadvantage overall in darkness but beyond that? No. It does not hinder perception.
3. What class is casting the spell? What spell is it?

2 is not entirely correct. Dark vision makes it so you see in darkness as though it were dim light and dim light as though it were bright light. You get disadvantage on sight based perception checks in dim light (or -5 on passive checks) and automatically fail sight based perception if you cannot see (i.e., trying to see something in darkness without dark vision). So dark vision only prevents disadvantage on perception checks in dim light.

[Indure]

The questions already seem to be fully answer, just wanted to add that darkvision actually changes what the actual player can see as well. Characters with darkvision have significantly brighter rooms than character without darkvision.

[nemthos]

Originally posted by Tinball:

Originally posted by Cyroy:

1. No, but there are mods that change that. Any searching is done automatically by your "passive perception"
2. Not sure how BG3 rules it, but under 5e rules perception checks in the dark without dark vision fail automatically while checks in dim light are made with disadvantage. But from my experience they seem to rule natural darkness the same way as dim light. So yes, darkvision helps and no torches don't hinder it.
3. Dex determines stealth and perception, so yes.

Point #2 is incorrect. You do not auto fail perception check in the dark without dark vision. You would have disadvantage (if it's a sight based check).

If it is Darkness and not dim light you are considered blinded, so you do auto fail checks based on sight. Dim light is the setting that gives you disadvantage.

Point 3 on the other hand is incorrect. Wisdom determines perception, not dex